On Guard for Labor

Sep 1, 2004

Mario Gabriel Budebo's job at the head of Mexico's pension fund regulatory agency has him advocating for a single, but powerful, constituency: organized labor.

Mario Gabriel Budebo

The president of Consar, Mexico's pension fund regulatory
agency, has adopted tunnel vision since his appointment last
year. "The worker is our only client," says Mario Gabriel
Budebo. "We don't have any interest in thinking about anything
else."

The 1997 legislation that set up Mexico's pensions system,
modeled on 401(k)s in the US, put labor union leaders on
Consar's board. Although Gabriel Budebo is the target of heavy
lobbying from any number of special interests, he must always
put organized labor first. "We sit on this committee with
members of the unions, and that disciplines us to think
uniquely in terms of the interest of the worker," he says.

He gives the example of a decision that countered attempts
to use Afores, the privately managed pension funds, to develop
Mexico's capital markets....